William (Jake) Wright, PhD

E-mail

William.Wright@pitt.edu

Education & Training

B.S., Wofford College (2015)
PhD, University of Pittsburgh (2021)

Campus Address

269 Crawford Hall

Mentor

Yan Dong

Graduation Year

2021

One-Line Research Description

Understanding the synaptic and circuit mechanisms underlying motivation and addiction

Representative Publications

 

Representative Publications

 

Schall TA*, Wright WJ*, Dong Y. Nucleus accumbens fast-spiking interneurons in motivational and
addictive behaviors. Mol Psychiatry. 2021 Jan;26(1):234-246. doi: 10.1038/s41380-020-0683-y. Epub
2020 Feb 18. PMID: 32071384; PMCID: PMC7431371. * equal contributio

 

Wright, W.J. and Dong, Y. (2020) Psychostimulant-induced adaptations in nucleus accumbens glutamatergic transmission. Cold Spring Harbor Persepctives in Medicine, In Press (invited review)

 

Wright, W.J.*, Graziane, N.M.*, Neumann, P.A., Hamilton, P.J., Cates, H.M., Fuerst, L., Spenceley, A.,
Mackinnon-Booth, N., Iyer, K., Huang, Y.H., Shaham, Y., Schlüter, O.M., Nestler, E.J., & Dong, Y.
(2020) Silent synapses dictate cocaine memory destabilization and reconsolidation. Nature Neuroscience,
23(1); 32-46. doi: 10.1038/s41593-019-0537-6. * equal contribution

 

Lorsch, Z.S., Hamiltion, P.J., Ramakrishnan, A., Parise, E.M., Wright, W.J., Salery, M., Lepack, A., Mews, P., Issler, O., McKenzie, A., Zhou, X., Parise, L.F., Pirpinias, S.T., Torres, I.O., Montgomery, S., Loh, Y-H.E., Labonte, B., Conkey, A., Symonds, A.E., Neve, R., Turecki, G., Maze, I., Dong, Y., Zhang, B., Shen, L., Bagot, R.C., & Nestler, E.J. (2019) ZFP189 mediates stress resilience through a CREB-Regulated transcriptional network in prefrontal cortex. Nature Neuroscience, 22(9): 1413-1429.

 

Wright, WJ & Dong, Y. (2018) Intrinsic excitability of cocaine-associated memories. Neuropsychopharmacology, 43 (4); 675-676. 

Wright, WJ & Dong, Y. (2017) Tipping the scales toward addiction. Biological Psychiatry, 81(11); 903-904.

Wright, W.J., Schlüter, OM, & Dong, Y. A feedforward inhibitory circuit mediated by CB1-expressing
fast-spiking interneurons in the nucleus accumbens. Neuropsychopharmacology Apr;42(5):1146-1156,
2017.

Wright, W.J. & Dong, Y. (2016). N-methy-d-aspartate receptors: “C”ing the culprits behind cocaine-induced metaplasticity. Biological Psychiatry, 80(9): 644-646.

 

Graziane, NM, Sun, S*, Wright, W.J.*, Jang, D, Zheng, L, Huang, YH, Nestler, EJ, Wang, YT, Schlüter, OM, & Dong, Y. (2016) Opposing mechanisms mediate morphine- and cocaine-induced generation of silent synapses. Nature Neuroscience, 19: 915-925.  * equal contribution

 

Dissertation

Alumni Current Affiliation

Postdoctoral Scholar, University of California, San Diego